Trump, Who Lives on Another Planet, Claims Women Will Soon ‘No Longer Think About Abortion’

Polls have consistently shown that abortion rights will be among the primary issues motivating voters on November 5—the first presidential election since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from maintaining the delusion that abortion is a non-issue. In former President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to downplay the role of reproductive rights this election, he wrote in a bizarre, comically out-of-touch Truth Social post on Friday that, actually, women will soon “no longer think about abortion.”

“WOMEN ARE POORER THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS HEALTHY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO… ARE MORE DEPRESSED AND UNHAPPY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO,” the post begins (caps, of course, Trump’s own). It only gets more braindead from there. Trump claims that in his second term, “WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE”—so much so that “YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION,” because, he reasons, the issue will be left up to the states. Of course, abortion laws are currently up to the states—and that’s precisely why some patients are dying or being pushed to the brink of death under abortion bans.

The rest of Trump’s post repeats horrific lies equating abortion with the “EXECUTION OF A BABY AFTER BIRTH.” For the umpteenth time, this is not a thing. “I WILL PROTECT WOMEN AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. THEY WILL FINALLY BE HEALTHY, HOPEFUL, SAFE, AND SECURE. THEIR LIVES WILL BE HAPPY, BEAUTIFUL, AND GREAT AGAIN!” he concludes.

As usual when it comes to Trump’s late-night ranting and raving, I’m torn between the instinct to cry out of exasperation and laugh at the absurdity of it all. There’s something undeniably comical about a man found civilly liable for sexual abuse and who frequently boasts about being the one to end Roe v. Wade telling women he’ll be the ones to make our lives “HAPPY, BEAUTIFUL, AND GREAT AGAIN”—in all caps, no less! I am also audibly chortling at his comment clocking that women “ARE MORE DEPRESSED” lately, because he’s not exactly wrong—most of my girlfriends and I are, indeed, in therapy right now. But the rash of state laws imposing forced pregnancy and birth, all of which Trump’s Supreme Court picks made possible, have only fueled our collective depression.

Trump’s comments remind me of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) from last month: “This election is not going to be about abortion,” Graham told NBC. “It’s going to be about the economy and a world on fire.” To be clear, abortion is fundamentally an economic issue: Seeking and being denied abortion can push someone deeper into poverty, and the costs of traveling across state lines to access abortion care can bankrupt someone. But Republicans don’t care about acknowledging these basic facts; they care about putting as much distance between themselves and reality as possible.

Graham and Trump aren’t alone in trying to lie that women and the general electorate actually don’t care about abortion. The GOP’s vice presidential candidate, Sen. J.D. Vance (Ohio) told Fox News, “I think most suburban women care about the normal things that most Americans care about, right? They care about inflation, they care about the price of groceries, they care about public safety in the streets where their kids play.” Sorry to repeat myself, but those are not all that separate from lack of abortion access, which also jeopardizes pregnant people’s safety and economic wellbeing. 

Meanwhile, other Republicans are dodging questions about where they stand on a national abortion ban, and the Republican platform itself barely discusses abortion—though it still calls for fetal personhood. 

Faced with the overwhelming popularity of abortion rights, this is all Republicans have: lies, obfuscation, and delusional, all-caps social media posts pledging to cure American women’s collective depression.